Kapil Sibal

If I was an Indian Muslim, I would have a whole lot of questions today and certainly no answers.

So far, I believed in the pictures of Rahul Gandhi, skull cap and all, in Iftar party breaking his fast, so to speak, at sunset during a day in the Ramadan month. His remarks that Congress is a party of Muslims. Now, I read he said Tuesday in Indore that his party is one of Hinduism.

It raised a whole lot of issues to my mind. Does Congress stand for Muslims, Dalits, Hindus or everyone. So far I have been told the only protectors Muslims have are Congress. They engineered a special protection for my Jammu and Kashmir brethrens and sisters in Indian Constitution. They stood up for Sharia during the Shah Bano case; are most determined for Rohingya refugees; paralyzed the country on Kathua tragedy; stalled the Triple Talaq bill, spotlight every single–half or full–lynching incident in the remotest hamlets of the country. Now they say they are one of Hinduism.

All this while, they dubbed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as sectarian and communal even though Narendra Modi never once said he stood only for Hindus. Isn’t Rahul Gandhi now being communal by opening claiming his party is one of Hinduism? Isn’t it polarizing the communities? Widening the gulf of fear and insecurity between practitioners of two religions? Is this the vision of One India or daring of a burglar who wishes to rob the home of 1.3 billions of all its valuables?

Then I look at my newspapers. My day begins with Indian Express, the “journalism of courage.” For the last four years and half, they have reported every single incident against my Muslim community, and Dalits, with sincerity and not a little bit of imagination and creativity. They have marked anniversaries of Dadri, Pehlu or a Junaid by sacrificing the space for news of their front pages. They made sure my Muslim community didn’t forget for a single day the crimes which have been committed against them during the Modi regime (Nor did they Una or Bhima-Koregaon on behalf of Dalits). Indian Express seemed seriously concerned about the future of Indian Muslims.

And look at them, now that Rahul Gandhi has jumped the ship, to my eyes at least, Indian Express choose to completely blank out his Indore comment in today’s edition (31.10.2018). Why didn’t they report Rahul Gandhi for his communal and polarizing comment? Why did they desert me and million of Indian Muslims like me who dread a majoritarian narrative in this country? Could Indian Express be said to be standing up to the idea of secular, free and equal India? Just imagine if Modi had said BJP stands only for Hinduism? (They haven’t allowed him to live down the Kabristan-Shamsaan speech to this day).

If I could ask Indian Express why for a similar offence, BJP is communal and Congress is not. Why give ammunition to right-wingers who claim there is never a pro-Hindu story on your front pages? Why make even your die-hard fans like me and other Indian Muslims doubt your sincerity when you sweep Rahul Gandhi’s all-for-Hinduism comment under the carpet?

I’ve tried to give my faith in Indian Express a second chance. What if your reporter truly miss the Indore event? Extremely unlikely for Rahul didn’t offer his comment in private. It was a press conference. Even if your reporter missed the event, news agencies such as PTI must have brought the news on your teleprinters. On close inspection, I even find this Indore press conference of offensive-comment buried inside your newspaper (Page 8).

Then why did you throw a cloak on this Rahul remark from our views? Why have double standards on BJP and Congress? If you care about us Indian Muslims or the idea of India that you numb our minds daily with, why avoid the searchlight on Mr Rahul Gandhi? Is that an editorial policy or a direction you receive from “Above”? And who’s this “Above”? Does this “Above” have the welfare of us Indian Muslims or India as a whole in mind?

These are all very disturbing questions to my mind. I hope Indian Express takes my fears in the form of questions to Rahul Gandhi. Ask its editorial writers from JNU and Ashoka University; Kancha Ilaiahs or Apoorvanands, to prove they truly speak for us minorities. That their propagation of free and secular India is not fake. Scratch the surface of Kapil Sibal and Shashi Tharoor who are never out of your reach, or representation, in your newspaper on a daily basis. You could even evoke write-ups from retired professionals such as Justice Fali S. Nariman or Chelameswar, ex-cop Julio Ribeiro, ex-election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi etc who don’t even need an invitation to fill your editorial pages.

After all, you are “journalism of courage.” You profess to stand up for us minorities. You claim to care for a free and secular India. The proof of burden that you don’t write on behalf of Muslims and Dalits only when it suits you.

It’s now given that attacks on judiciary would hog the front pages of newspapers and prime time television till the 2019 General Elections.

Newspapers would speculate on the “allegations” whether the Chief Justice of India ought to be impeached or not but you would never see them beat one’s own brains whether the four “dissenting” SC judges have themselves invited an impeachment motion on their press conference earlier this year (as opined by former SC judge RS Sodhi).

You would see these presstitutes flagpole government’s apparent delay in confirming the appointments of judges, initiated by the SC Collegium, but you would never see them brainstorm if government’s demand for a more transparent appointment system is justified given how a particular judge, belonging to Collegium itself, was ordered by the SC itself to undergo mental “stability” examination!

The Lutyens’ Media would run up any given lampost to browbeat the NDA government for trying to “encroach” upon the judiciary but you would never see them admit that a Law Minister was always the part of the judicial appointment system till the Collegium came about in 1993.

(That “enroahed” system got a judgment against the sitting Prime Minister of India by a Allahabad High Court judge. That “encroached” system produced judges of the caliber of Justices Vivian Bose, Hidayatullah, JS Verma etc. What Collegium has produced, well…)

These despicable hacks would drown you with the noise that government is taking over the judiciary. They would never clarify as to how the “A.J. Raja acquittal” or Bapu Asaram guilty pronouncement then came about.

The crooked media would never tell you why sexual harassment charges against judges are dismissed on less-than-convincing grounds.

The deceitful pen-pushers wouldn’t tell an opaque system encourages judges to be manipulated—or why else most of the Supreme Court judges end up getting lucrative post-retirement jobs—and that it must be done away with.

The shameless mainstream media wouldn’t encourage dismantling the opaque system even after names of corrupt former CJIs are presented in a sealed envelope in the court. It would not question a Kapil Sibal why he didn’t asked for “impeachment” motion in above allegations of corruption and sexual misdemeanours against the honourable judges.

Best of all, you would never see the gutter media present the fact that after all this, NDA has cleared the appointment of more judges than ever per year.

So cram up the facts and be ready with answers when propaganda hits your face next time.

On the HRD’s move on “fake news”, now jettisoned, the strategy of Mainstream Media (MSM) has been two-pronged: One, it’s an assault on freedom of press (yawn); two, government must define what’s “news’.

The second defence is a stonewalling lawyer’s argument and it fittingly it has come from Manish Tewari who is from the Congress stable of Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Sanghvi (the names say it all).

So what’s “news”? News is information. If it is not truthfully reported, it’s “fake news”. One wonders why Tewari, once an Information minister, never came to ask the media houses: “Sirs and Madams, that you are in the business of news, what does news really amount to?” Wish somebody had asked him while he was in the minister’s chair: “Sir, what do you think is news”. Mr Minister himself would’ve escorted the journo out of the door. (As an aside, imagine worrying about the freedom of press when not being able to define news as per se!).

So the idea is, if you can’t define what’s news, how would you define what’s “fake news”? This jugglery was meant to stonewall and embarrass Smriti Irani. Tiwari and presstitutes of course would take no note of a number of fake news which appear on MSM daily and which OpIndia so brilliantly clubbed together recently.

Don’t expect presstitutes to come clean when caught with pants down. It runs to Press Council of India (PCI) for every speck of dust in the eye. But when the PCI chairman sees value in government’s move, the rogues of the stable—that’s mainstream media—don’t publish it.

These rogues are not obliged to any regulatory measure.

These shameless feel no accountability towards their readers.

They wouldn’t care to inform you that accredited journalists do not amount to entire community.

These thugs won’t tell you that the charm of being “accredited journalists” are the perks and benefits which comes with the tag.

Only if the Editor’s Guild of India and News Broadcasters Association were under the RTI, we would’ve known how many, IF ANY, transgressions of mainstream media in all these years these two august bodies have censored. Or whether the only time they clear their throat is when they cry “Assault on Freedom of Press.”

Where all this jockeying leaves the readers? No better than vegetables in the eyes of the presstitutes. Freedom of press? My foot. Freedom to loot and subvert; and scavenge on dead is more like it.

What’s OpIndia.com? Apparently nobody since Hindustan Times completely banned the Kapil Sibal “land scam” story which has propelled the remarkable website on to the national consciousness.

Who is Smriti Irani? Again nobody since Hindustan Times, leave aside the investigative story, didn’t even consider the presser of India’s Human Resource Development minister worthy of coverage. Every other story, from a Karnataka chicken to dime-a-dozen weather reports, mocked at its readers in complete disdain today.

Indian Express, typically, covered the story inside its covers but with a completely outrageous slant. It manipulated the story not as an alleged “land scam” but as Sibal allegedly siding with a “money launderer.” You see, scams—that too made-up– exist only for a particular political party in a particularly hostile mainstream daily. (Mischievous that the newspaper is, it covered its tracks with the mention of “land” in its online story).

These are the newspapers who are awarded and feted on fake “Panama Papers”—a CIA operation which is distributed to select media outlets around the world who then acquire a halo, claiming to have worked themselves to ground in heroically unearthing this massive scam. I mean how fake could you really get!!!

These newspapers run “investigative report series” on environmental hazards in Goa; every sneeze of a Dalit; every sweat of a Muslim, every strand of hair on a Dravidian mirror but try making them cover a scam concerning Congress or Left! It’s sunk on a sea floor without much ado. There are relaxed norms for columnists–such as Sibal, Yechury or Chidambaram–who are above reproach or probing questions. (And by the way why Surjit S. Bhalla has stopped appearing in Indian Express since becoming a member of Modi’s Economic Advisory Council? Any idea, sirji).

But could heat on them would lessen any degree only because the English mainstream media plays the cover-up game? Unlikely. Such are the avenues and platforms—social media and TV channels—available to readers that truth is out despite wool being pulled over their eyes by presstitutes.

And it is these rogues who beat their breasts on the “freedom of press” having done their best to slaughter the cause of independent media. All its “star” go into a slumber when their masters are grilled by unassailable facts. The more they stretch to cover, the more torn undies get in the process.

Osaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim hardliner known for his legal wordplay, was brought to his knees by the combine of Times Now’s Rahul Shivshankar and BJP spokesperson Dr. Sudhanshu Trivedi on Ayodhya issue on Tuesday night debate.

Owaisi’s spacious argument was that Kapil Sibal was representing Sunni Waqf Board in the Supreme Court in the capacity of a lawyer and not from Congress; similarly as Ravi Shankar Prasad and Arun Jaitley have represented their respective clients in the past even though they are the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

(The same argument was stressed by Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, chewing his words more than in his usual irritating style and flashing documents as Moses might have recounted the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20).

“But then why make a political argument that the Ayodhya hearing be postponed till after the ’19 General Elections? Doesn’t it show him (Sibal) as a political front of Congress? Why not stick to legal recourse? Doesn’t it show a lack of faith in India’s top judiciary?” Owaisi was questioned. Losing his cool by the minute, Owaisi said he didn’t fear as much Hindutva revivalism as Hindutva and the effect a majoritarian rule could have as it happened in (Nazi) Germany.

While Dr. Trivedi made a pertinent point on Hindu philosophy (“We have instances of one brother following another in the Forest; a heir-apparent abandoning his right on kingdom bowing to wishes of his father—unlike other faiths where son kills father and brother kills brother”), Owaisi’s sly reference to Germany needs a rebuttal. This is the last recourse Hindu-baiters employ to paint them as “Hindu fascist/Nazi forces.”

Since very few of us have the time or energy to verify these allegations, they acquire kind of a life of its own. Such a narrative would become more and more dominant till the next General Elections in 2019. It must be confronted with hard facts time and again.

Owaisi, who was dubbed by author Taslima Nasreen as a Muslim Extremist, is not alone in this fake tirade.

Communist leader Sitaram Yechury renamed RSS as Saffron Shirts (even though the RSS uniform has no saffron) or SS in a sly reference to Hitler’s dreaded paramilitary group. [i] Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders have done so in the past. [ii]

In Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the word Hindu or any term for any specifically Hindu concept, does not figure anywhere. “India” figures only twice.

As for the adoption of Swastika (or hooked cross) as party symbol, it was Hitler’s attempt to counter Communist “hammer and sickle” as a logo of his own party. It bore no resemblance to Hindu’s quest for inner control from one of his of outward physical dominance. [iii]

Further, there is no Hindutva theory on race purification, no biological divergence of the Hindu-Muslim conflict and no Hindu programme on eugenics.

Still, the Hindu-haters attempts have persisted all along. At the time of Ayodhya history debate in 1990-91, VHP-mandated scholars had mentioned a 19th century Germany archaelogist Dr. A. Fuhrer to further their claims. Quickly enough, the vicious propaganda turned it into an evidence of VHP’s admiration for the Fuhrer!

Owaisi need be told that if anything, the Muslim League before Independence was viewed to have a similar outlook on Hitler and Nazi Germany by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, as mentioned by BR Nanda in his book, Gandhi and his Critics :

“When Nehru returned after a brief visit to Europe in 1938, he was struck by the similarity between the propaganda methods of the Muslim League in India and the Nazis in Germany.”

Nanda wrote further that “the league leaders had begun to echo the Fascist tirade against democracy…Nazis were wedded to a negative policy. So also was the League. The League was anti-Hindu, anti-Congress, anti-national…the Nazis raised the cry of hatred against the Jews; the League had raised its cry against the Hindus.” [iv]

Though this piece is not about Hindu-Muslim viewpoints, it must be said in passing that the RSS and Hindutva forces, against whom Owaisi mouths his venom, have never commented on the intrinsic value of Islam as a religion even though by popular admission, Islam is narrower, more regimented and less freer than Hinduism.

For example, Muslim countries are less repentant about having treated non-Muslims under their rule as a lower class of human beings. Such has been the case against the Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Thousands of Christians were killed in Indonesia, in East Timor and in Sudan; substantial Copts were killed by Muslims in Egypt; Algerian Islamicists targeted Catholic priests in 1990s. Christian natives too have committed since against Hindus in Fiji but neither any Muslim or Christian country is ever termed as Fascist/Nazis. (Thanks to Dr. Koenraad Elst for these facts).

Communists have killed far more people in numbers than Hitler ever did. Did British colonial powers kill less number of Indians than Hitler ever did in his Holocaust?

Yet, the tag of being Fascist/Nazis has never been applied against an Islamic or Christian country after World War II. Hinduism, in contrast, is tolerant and accommodating, never looking for outward expansion, and thus an easy target for this tirade.

Those who call Hindutva as Fascists or Nazis, ironically are clearly in alliance with ideologies whose record against Humanity leaves much to be desired: Communism and Islamism.

I conclude this piece with a delicious chuckle: all these secularist champions—who fear-monger about supposed Hindu fascism—need be told that Hitler himself was a secularist!

The European history of the last half-millennium has shown that modernity (Renaissance, Enlightenment, French and American Revolution, French Third Republic etc) has gone hand-in-hand with secularization. Hitler too had continued with the secular policies of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. All along, Hitler had kept religions in its place.

Indian Express in its second lead on front page on Thursday have twisted itself into a tangle. Its’ murder of logic is something which Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes (or our own Col. Vinod) would utterly fail to solve.

Its’ Ayodhya story has so many loose ends that its multiple writers (the creditline is: Express News Service) could win world championship in “Fake News” but to pass them off as journalists is only possible in most creepy and insane mental asylum. And to think somebody actually cleared the copy and decorated the Front Page with it is Ripley’s textbook material. Such scripts can present the whodunit movie makers a guaranteed blockbuster.

The 1000-word gorilla of a story essentially tries to prove that Kapil Sibal was representing an individual client and not UP Sunni Waqf Board and the guy (Haji Mehboob) who snubbed Sibal on his unprompted remark “postpone-Ayodhya-hearing-till-July 2019” was not a member of the board.

Readers can read the entire Express story in this link and then most possibly would join me in posing a set of questions to the newspaper:

(a) Even if Sibal is representing this individual client Iqbal Ansari (this guy must be rich to afford Sibal), his remarks have been disowned by Ansari himself. So whose case is Mr Sibal fighting? (our guess is Congress. Express could’ve asked even “piddi” to get this answer).

(b) Express quotes a lawyer of the UP Sunni Waqf Board for claiming Haji Mehboob is not its member. It then quotes Mehboob for having met Sibal in Delhi three days ago. In what capacity? (for as per Express Sibal-Waqf Board-Haji Mehboob are all unrelated).

(c) Express states that Mehboob replaced his father as a defendant in the Ayodhya case. Who’s the father? Express doesn’t make an effort to clarify.

(d) Express brings All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to buttress its story with this quote in support of Sibal. “…it was not the right time to take up the matter for final hearing.” But who’s AIMPLB? Isn’t the body in question in UP Sunni Waqf Board? Why not speak to them and find out whether they had authorized Sibal’s views or not?

(e) For a moment, let’s admit AIMPLB is legitimate body to comment. Shouldn’t Express have asked them how they arrived at the conclusion that the “right time” has to be after July 2019?

(f) Could it be that Express wasn’t able to access Sunni Waqf Board? But then how was it able to lay hand on one of its Advocates-on-Record and quote him extensively without asking the primary question: What’s UP Sunni Waqf Board stance?

(g) What are readers supposed to make sense when it reads from other sources that UP Sunni Waqf Board chairman Zufar Ahmed Farooqi has said: “none of the members supported the view that the case be deferred.” (Express can claim it couldn’t get Farooqi on record. But would it carry Sunni Waqf Board’s views next day?)

Express then states that Modi has “picked up” the Sibal quote and goes on extensively to quote the latter, allowing him to offer his defence.

Sibal predictably lays into BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing them of having no principle in politics. He outlines the virtues of Congress and how it wants unity in the country. His grouse against employment, exports, GDP situation in the country is allowed full vent.

But Express fails to ask Sibal a basic question: Who do you think you were representing? Neither UP Sunni Waqf Board nor your independent client has supported your comment. If indeed you are present in the hearing as a lawyer and not as a politician, why colour the legal proceedings with apprehensions on political fallout in 2019 General Elections?

Express doesn’t ask some basic questions in this story. All it does is to sweat and put Sibal and Sunni Waqf Board in separate pigeon holes and labours to make them appear in better light.

The attempt is a massive flop. And even its diehard fans are asking: How come “journalism of courage” has turned into “gutter of journalism?”

Kapil Sibal, former telecom minister in the UPA government, in an Oped article in Times of India (May 2, 2017) today, has urged “Asli Hindus” to distance themselves from Hindutva which, in his view, is nothing but fundamentalism in the name of Hinduism and mirrors intolerance, casteism and a sedition-happy government.

The trouble is Sibal saying so is like the devil quoting from the scriptures. He was the father of the notorious amended 66A section of the IT Act under UPA which could land anyone in jail for three years for “offensive” tweets. Anyone arrested had to apply for a bail under this cognizable offence.

The need for this draconian measure was to crush dissent against the corruption in the UPA government. A Jadavpur University Professor, Ambikesh Mohapatra, was arrested in April 2011 for merely forwarding on email a cartoon on Mamata Banerjee. Similarly, cartoonist Assem Trivedi, in solidarity with Anna Hazare’s crusade against corruption, was arrested and had to shut-down his website.

This was like an Emergency; a true muzzling of freedom of speech and expression. In the end, Supreme Court had to step in and squash the amended 66A Act, terming it “unconstitutional.”

This “unconstitutional” move went all the way up to your door, Mr. Sibal. It isn’t like Una, Dadri or Alwar where Modi government is being dragged for no role of their own.

Indeed, such outrageous were your moves and utterances as a minister, that Supreme Court had to intervene once again and bring the guilty to book. I of course am referring to the 2G Scam. It was you, as telecom minister, who rubbished all the investigations under the 2G spectrum scam, be it of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), CBI, Justice Shivraj Patil report, or by the one of telecom regulator, TRAI. You even made the absurd claim that your predecessor A. Raja’s spectrum allocation in 2008 caused no loss to the exchequer!!! It was only after Supreme Court bristled in anger that you had to buckle down. It’s a reminder to you readers that 2G scam was worth 170,000 crores.

(Who has stopped the flag of peace from blowing in the air on this land? Is this someone a disciple of Hitler and we must not let him get away with this. Nehru is no better than a slave of Commonwealth and he ought not to be allowed to get away with it).

This “freedom of speech” and “intolerance” nonsense against the Modi government which is being used to put them in a corner on the Hindutva issue isn’t cutting much ice with the voters of this country. “Asli Hindus” aren’t willing to be drugged any further by anti-India left-liberal-media factions. Newspapers like Times of India could reserve the best space in its edition for your harangues but trust me the people of this country don’t give a damn. Divide and rule won’t work in today’s India.

Times of India in its editorial today has cried bucketful on the “harmful” influence of social media on the “news-professionals” like them, and other mainstream media. It offers a sanguine advice to Facebook to wake up to the “fake and misleading news that are downright fabrications.” The edit writer has no doubt that the US polls have been influenced by false information posted as “news” on social media.

For too long news professionals—of which I was a part for three-decades and more—have believed that they know best. For large part of my career I was an international cricket writer and believed only insider knows what’s happening. There was an air about me which suitably got punctured when CricInfo came on to the scene. There was initial mocking, disdain which turned into grudging acceptance to downright admiration for their language, insight and imagination in due course. Men like Rahul Bhattacharrya, Dileep Premchandran and Sidharth Monga earned deep respect with their work.

Sport was one such instance. There were separate fields like politics, social commentary, historical references which began receiving fresh winds of change. Many of us “professional news” gatherers began picking up the minds on social media. Our copies were better for it; our insight only got richer. Most of my fellow print journalists reading this piece would admit, if they are honest, that a lot of their “reporting” happens on the phone only. This claim to being “professionals” is so stupid. At least 99 per cent of we “professional journalists” wouldn’t have read 10 books in our lifetimes.

The Times of India edit increasingly begin pontificating. It says that social media may lead to “medievalisation” of the global community. “It would give spurt to tribal instincts—in the form of racism, xenophobia or communalism—that is exploding around the world.”

Really, how stupid you can get. Newspapers at best offer a bridge of communication between public and public institutions. It ought to put both viewpoints in perspective. But the mainstream media of today completely eschews this role. In its worldview, the unheard must not be heard; the unspoken must not be allowed to speak. The “have-nots” of this world have no reason to question the “haves” to which the modern media is a part. These ivory towers of the world are increasingly being smashed as BrExit and US polls reveal how removed they are from reality. The credit for it squarely goes to “social media” where people are connecting, sharing information and forming their own opinion. You look at our newspapers and you would know who is promoting “racism” and “communalism.”

The NewsBred links below would offer dozens of such deliberate “misreporting” and “twisting” of facts. If this is what Times of India has in mind by way of “professionalism” the readers are better off without it. The mainstream media is increasingly becoming not worth of our time and certainly not of our money. This closed shop has crumbled but the rats can’t feel the boiling water in the tub.

The so-called “news professionals” are just sound-byte carriers. They go to the source which is likely to offer them the point of view they wish to publish or telecast. Unlike in social media where the news and information is more rigorously debated and evidence is provided with. Every opinion is open to challenge on social media. Unlike the closed shop that mainstream media has become. Mainstream Media is in deep shit and they know it.

Times of India ends its piece by urging Facebook, Twitter and Google to put a limit on social media. This is the same newspaper which cried hoarse when former Union Minister Kapil Sibal tried to put a restriction on facebook and twitter. The “freedom of expression” doesn’t concern them now.

If you are an Indian Express reader you have just been told: you are the dumbest, stupidest, bumpkin, buffoon, idiot, thick-headed, retarded, imbecile reader on this earth.

It’s your choice to live with this tag, readers.

Or why would their lead story of today (February 28, 2016) “VIDEO IS OUT: Kanhaiya assaulted, breaks down, police duck for cover” has no relation at all with the real report, smug as they are with the pig that they believe you are, readers?

Now what this headline tells you: It is that there is video which shows Kanhaiya assaulted, breaks down, police duck for cover, isn’t it?

And what does the actual report tells you?: The report tells you that this video is a deposition of Kanhaiya before the Supreme Court panel.

Spotted the difference? (don’t tell me you are really what Express thinks you are).

So,

The Headline tells you there is a video of “Kanhaiya assaulted.’

The report tells you the video is of “Kanhaiya’s disposition” and not of assault.

In other words, Express believes that you stupid readers wouldn’t go beyond their headline (they actually know their worth, folks). Even if it is the lead story!

Now the next question which crossed my mind was how did they get hold of the video? A smart piece of journalism? That made me look for the SC panelists. One was Kapil Sibal (a multiple minister in the previous Congress government); another lawyer Vrinda Grover who is a board member of GreenPeace whose license to collect foreign funds has been cancelled by the Modi government. Actually Sibal has also been in the programme board of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has been hauled over to Supreme Court by a writ petition.

I might be suggesting a NGOs+Congress+Marxists+Media collusion here but so dumb are you readers that I am confident I could get away with it without you suspecting anything.

There are usual suspects littered in this edition of Indian Express: Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Admiral Ramdass, Sharad Pawar, Chidambaram, Nitish Kumar, our revered academic institutions voices (this time it’s missionary college St. Stephen’s principal), going after government on JNU issue. (Actually you must admire Mulayam, Jayalalitha, Mamata, Lalu, Shiv Sena to hold their tongues so far). Central minister Uma Bharti is actually lucky to get two paras in support of Modi, buried many pages deep inside the newspaper.

It’s a rogues’ gallery with Express passing the board-room bulletin as news for us asinine readers.

And don’t you believe anyone loves cricket in this country. On a Sunday edition, there is no front page mention of India beating Pakistan on a cricket field. Never mind this was India’s only seventh T20 match against arch rivals this millennium and that Virat Kohli played a knock which Sachin Tendulkar would’ve been proud to own up. (May be, showing Pakistan in a losing, poor light would’nt suit the agenda).

Fortunately, inside there is a full page interview of about-to-retire Delhi police commissioner, BS Bassi. He has replied on relevant issues but newspaper won’t put a word of it on the front page.

Bassi puts it as it is: without any spin, full of logic and reason. All those reporters and editors who have been baying for his blood, beat a hasty retreat. All that posturing went out of the first window. So here’s what Bassi said on key issues (it’s an abridged version of his quotes):

On The Actual Sedition Case: It’s an open-and-shut case (wow). Under section 124A of the IPC it’s a grave offence. It’s been declared valid by the Constitution. (For police) It’s an extremely easy case.

The law says: “bringing in hatred or contempt or exciting disaffection towards state by words or signs or visible representations.”

I am going to crack this case because I know these are the guys who have done it.

Please read the Kedar Nath judgment of 1962.

Country has to deal with issues in Northeast, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and J and K. We have to have a law to deal with anti-national activities.

Debate happens within constitutional norms. But if it’s an anti-national activity, then it doesn’t remain a debate. Society survives because we respect our Constitution. If all of us start disrespecting our Constitution, the country will be destroyed.

Nobody is letting police do the job. Society as a whole should’ve cooperated with us.

On Kanhaiya, Journalists Beaten Inside Court:

Patiala House is a confined place. Use of teargas, lathi etc would have turned Patiala House into another Jallianwalla Bagh. It’s a prudent practice which police followed. My prudent policing practices also tell me I should have some space to chase away trouble- creators…If I have no such place, it will turn into nothing but Jallianwalla Bagh.

No footage is available of Kanhaiya being beaten. Journalists were still able to cover the event.

I would call it a technical riot because a real riot means arson and people’s heads being broken.

On Journalists Being Questioned:

It’s our job to ask involved persons and seek their reactions (as part of investigations). The thing has been made bigger than the actual event.

There, you have it.

The thing has been made bigger than the actual event. A case under trial has been considered bigger than over two dozen lives lost in the Jat stir. The Jat Stir case that has an aide of ex-Haryana Congress Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in an audio, apparently egging on a Jat community leader to escalate the violence. But that apparently doesn’t deserve any space in our beloved newspaper.

Don’t you think the front page deserved this headline (or even in inside pages):

JNU: It’s an Open-and-Shut Case, says Bassi

So we now know the devil who has been quoting from the scriptures. Who thinks bark is bigger than the bite. Who doesn’t know that it’s truth which can set it free.

So Shakespeare wrote:

The devil can cite scripture for his purpose;

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek

A goodly apple rotten at the heart.

In today’s world of deception and lies, truth is a revolutionary act. It’s up to us readers to hold the flag of truth high. And don’t be the fools that our newspapers think we are.